The shadow president is now running the country

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A friend of Glenn Reynolds predicted this yesterday:

Earlier today, Trump called for RFK to get Secret Service protection, and a friend messaged me: “Haha, when they do that, our crazy orange former president official becomes shadow chief executive. Making the common sense calls the Biden admin can’t quite manage.”

And later today, they did that, with Sec. Mayorkas announcing that RFK will get Secret Service protection. To which my friend comments: “Prediction: Here through Jan 20  will be the first six months of the second Trump admin.”

What makes Biden look so weak in this situation (as in all other matters) is that he has previously denied six different requests for such protection for his own political purposes. Certainly, the assassination attempt forced his hand, but his handlers must have known as the shots still echoed that, politically they had to give Kennedy protection immediately, and had they acted swiftly, they’d have come through unscathed. Instead, they hemmed and hawed until Trump demanded that they act, and then their reversal made it appear that they were bowing to Trump’s will; bad optics.

John Fund, National Review:

>>>

A Kennedy aide told me that the campaign has already spent $3 million on private security that accompanies Kennedy everywhere he goes. I asked why RFK didn’t have Secret Service protection despite his family history (his uncle, John F. Kennedy, and his father, Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated).

I got a stunning answer. The Biden Department of Homeland Security has six times rejected requests from the Kennedy campaign to provide such protection. Ironically, it was RFK’s death in 1968 that led the Secret Service to expand its protective coverage to leading presidential candidates. Some Kennedy advisers believe that Biden is worried enough about Kennedy’s support in key swing states as to be satisfied that Kennedy has to allocate millions in scarce campaign dollars to security.

But as the shooting at former president Trump’s latest rally in Pennsylvania has just proven, American politics can be suddenly volatile. Newsweek reports that 775 pages of documents obtained by the Freedom of Information Act detail 34 instances of direct threats and bizarre rants directed at RFK Jr. by various entities and individuals. One promised, on social media, to “kill rfk jr lawfully on USA soil. Bullets right into the head,” while another wrote, “RFK is not immune from a 7.62 caliber bullet.”

Kennedy’s lawyers have sent six letters to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas formally requesting protection, to no avail. Last month, cousin of RFK Jr. and former House member Patrick Kennedy weighed in with his own request: “I struggle to understand the administration’s persistent refusal to grant Secret Service protection to a presidential candidate deemed by the Secret Service itself to be at elevated risk.”

Even Democrats are starting to question the Biden administration’s preposterous refusal. Colorado governor Jared Polis and Arizona representative Ruben Gallego have demanded protection for Kennedy.

So too have some Republicans. Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman for President George W. Bush, says the Biden administration should have provided Secret Service protection to Kennedy “a long time ago.”

Thomas Balcerski, a presidential historian at Eastern Connecticut State University, says the Biden refusal looks both shortsighted and petty: “Giving Kennedy protection would give him political currency. The speculation is that Biden doesn’t want that.”

If that’s true, sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time that our cognitively failing, peevish, and narcissistic president has lashed out at his political adversaries. The attempted assassination of another presidential candidate, one expects, should be enough to alert the president to his folly.

Elizabeth Warren, eat your heart out: J.D. Vance is married to a REAL American Indian.

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Well, Indian-American, but that’s still closer to a tipi than Elizabeth’s ever been.

Usha Vance, née Chilukuri, born in 1986, was raised in San Diego, California, and attended Yale Law School, where she met the future Ohio senator, according to a report from the New York Times.

“I coulda been a contenda, if I wasn’t a pretenda”

A harbinger?

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I saw someone post the same Amazon search auto-fills and thought I’d try it myself. I used a fresh third-party browser install and from behind my VPN so none of my previous Amazon history would influence the results.

When Amazon’s own Prime Day comes in seventh behind Trump stuff, just the days before the big annual Prime Day sale begins, you know there’s something up.

Posted at 4:50 pm by Stephen Green

Pending

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(Prices shown are asking price; the short time on market for these four suggests that some or all will be selling for more than ask)

50 Sumner Road, $4.995 million, 11 days

You can find a discussion and your comments on this property in my July 1st column, here.

Woodside

3 Woodside Drive, $3.995 million, 19 days

silver beech

6 Silver Beech Road, Riverside NoPo, $1.275 million, 16 days

Rainbow Drive

5 Rainbow Drive, Riverside NoPo, $1.695 million, 24 days.

Final prices reported from Riverside

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68 Willowmere Circle, full price, $3.895 million, 10 days

dawn harbor

14 Dawn Harbor Lane, full price, $8.495 million, 10 days.

meyer place

11 Meyer Place, $3.090 million got, $3.135 asked; 23 days.

highgate road

10 Highgate Road, land sale, $2.7 million, 718 days.

I showed this property to clients back in 2009 or 2010, and they almost bit; the house was certainly very livable, and could have been renovated at not too much expense, but even then its value was a land, and they passed. Too bad — they ended up settling for something not, in my opinion, as nice in another town.

It's J.D. Vance, and that's fine with me, though I'm sure there'll be howls on the right. (UPDATED)

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Trump’s announced his pick.

Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy showed a compassionate understanding of the drug problem that’s trapped half the population of rural America (up in Maine, as well as his old Kentucky home) balanced by admiration for the other half who, like Vance himself, persevere. The book’s a fine read, and before his critics tear him apart, they should read it (and I don’t mean viewing the Ron Howard TV adaptation, that missed the whole point of the book).

Just read this after writing the above, and, remembering that the mark of a genius is a man who agrees with you, here’s HOTAIR’s managing editor and resident genius, Ed Morrissey, weighing on on the pick:

At 39, Vance will be one of the youngest candidates ever on a national presidential ticket. He only has one partial term as Senator under his belt; his direct opponent, Kamala Harris, had only one incomplete term in the Senate as well when Joe Biden picked her as a running mate. Vance authored Hillbilly Elegy, a book that resonated among Trump's conservo-populist base, and has been a tireless ally for the former and likely future president.

Vance will certainly provide youth and vigor on the campaign trail. He will also be the only veteran on either ticket, and a combat veteran at that in Iraq as a military journalist. He has proven himself articulate on the stump as well as on the page, and has been a promising bench member since joining the Senate less than two years ago. 

The surprising non-surprise comes from the events of the last couple of days, and perhaps since the debate. Trump had already signaled that his strategy was shifting to woo people outside the tent rather than just a base turnout strategy after Biden bombed so badly less than three weeks ago. The question was whether that strategic shift would also impact his selection of running mate, choosing someone who could broaden the appeal rather than excite the base.

Now we have our answer, and a good look at what Trump plans to do. He has already told Salena Zito that he threw out his red-meat acceptance speech for Thursday in favor of a more positive, conciliatory speech to promote unity. We can expect that to continue past the convention too, especially since Biden seems incapable of meeting the moment effectively. 

By choosing Vance as his running mate, though, Trump can keep his base happy and fired up. Plus, it's been clear since Trump's acrimonious split with Mike Pence that he would almost certainly not use the pick to elevate the establishment faction of the GOP again. He wants a partner he can trust, plus someone who can carry on the MAGA agenda and base in case he can't finish the term, and/or into the future. This allows Trump to expand his appeal rather than changing his entire approach. And he can also ask Vance to do some of the rhetorical heavy lifting on the MAGA agenda with certified credibility while Trump himself focuses on conciliation and national leadership.

That's a smart strategy. It's not the only smart strategy that was available to Trump, but it's a rational choice, and not one likely to get much second-guessing this week. 

Uh huh

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(I’m aware of this morning’s dismissal of the Jack Smith case against Trump, and feel free to comment below, but the decision will go up on appeal to the 11th Circuit and from there to the Supreme Court before judgement is truly “final”, so I choose to look at an issue that’s here and now, instead.)

One story: DHS Secretary Who Insisted the Border Was Secure Claims Trump's Had 'Enhanced Security' for Weeks. Denies the claims (below) that any agents were switched to Jill protection.

And here’s the other: Secret Service resources were diverted from Trump rally and sent off to protect the President’s baby sitter

>>> But that's not the only problem with Trump's security detail that day. Another source at the Secret Service told Crabtree that Trump's usual protective detail has been overworked, with agents working seven days a week without days off. Due to the strain, many agents assigned to Trump's detail on Saturday were temporary replacements from different field offices, and there were only two snipers. 

[Well, three, if you count Mr. Crook — Ed]

“Trump has a permanent detail, however it’s much smaller in the amount of bodies,” the source explained. “His detail has been worked so hard with all the travel that they’re working 7 days a week with shift changes. so HQ sends in temp agents to supplement - not a good scenario. Mission Failure, IMHO.”

Only one agent from Trump's permanent security detail was reportedly present.

"The Pittsburgh USSS Field Office had a Jill Biden visit and designated a lot of resources to her." 

“That is f***ing unbelievable to me,” the source told Crabtree.

Who to believe? I’d say that the results speak for themselves.

“It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye”

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More from “President ‘can’t we all get along?’: “Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation. He's a threat to our freedom He’s a threat to our democracy. He's literally a threat to everything America stands for.”

And then there’s this:

Don’t be fooled folks.

This is what unity looks like from Democrat politicians and many of their supporter’s. pic.twitter.com/RXz7KbQbGT

— Allen Lively (@AllenLivelyLOF)July 14, 2024

🚨Flashback to Lincoln Project cofounder Rick Wilson in 2023:

"They're still going to have to go out and put a bullet in Donald Trump." pic.twitter.com/FqMFty7SlO

The Democratic super-donor, in a post on X, tried to clean up the inflammatory remarks he made last week while telling the audience at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference that he and fellow tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel had a falling out due to a “moral issue” — Thiel’s backing of Trump, according to a Friday report in Puck News.

Thiel, who was in the audience at the panel, spoke up and sarcastically thanked thanked Hoffman for putting money behind lawsuits against Trump, saying that the legal action had turned the 45th president into “martyr.”

“Yeah, I wish I had made him an actual martyr,” Hoffman reportedly replied.

I'm no conspiracist, but I look forward to learning who trained him, and where

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no deadeye dick, he

Would-be Trump assassin tried to join high school shooting club, was rejected for being ‘comically bad’ shot

The Pennsylvania man who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump during a rally on Saturday  tried out for his high school’s rifle team, but he was rejected for being a “terrible” shot and making “off-color” jokes.

>>>

A few years before the assassination attempt, Crooks tried out for the rifle team at Bethel Park High School, two former classmates told The Post.

The team at Bethel Park shoots Anschutz single-shot rifles with peep sights and .22-caliber ammunition, Jameson Murphy and another former student explained.

The shooting range at the school is 50 feet long by 21 feet wide, with seven ranges.

Crooks once fired from the seventh lane — the closest lane to the right wall — and hit the left wall, completely missing every target on the back wall. He missed his target by close to 20 feet, Murphy recalled.

“He tried out…and was such a comically bad shot he was unable to make the team and left after the first day,” Murphy said.

>>>

Crooks – who has been described as a loner who wore hunting outfits to class – ”couldn’t shoot at all. He was a terrible shot,” the second classmate added.

Even the coach, they continued, had concerns about Crooks.

“Our old coach was a stickler, he trained Navy marksmen, so he knew people. He knew when someone’s not the greatest person,” the ex-classmate explained.

All this was “ few years ago”, and you can train almost anyone to be a marksman in less than three years — the military does, and even I have helped complete novices from a local Maine high school rifle team hit bullseyes in a single fall semester, but it does take practice: a lot of it, at a range, and almost certainly with an instructor — self-instruction, while certainly possible, is rare.

So this is a curious story.